Computational approaches to studying food webs, networks of who eats whom in an ecosystem.

Food webs, or networks of who eats whom in an ecosystem, provide a complex yet tractable description of ecosystem diversity and have long been a central topic in ecological research. This project aims to advance our understanding of the interplay between network structure, species traits and species interaction rules that lead to the existence of robust, species-rich ecological networks.

The project uses computational methods to model network structure and simulate energy flow through ecological networks. Wherever possible, models are parameterized using the best available empirical data. A suite of tools is under development to implement the models and analyze and visualize model outputs.